A little chat with alienware consulter

ill let the below quote do the talkign
lol can you say owned?

Lol, giving em a run for their money eh?

Nice one, now at least you warned me about that extra 800$$, cuz I planned to buy alien ware soon enough

That was cool. You know that lady was cussing you out up and down as she was talking to you.. Anyway.. Those systems are way over priced.. You are paying for the name and the cool looks. I was gonna get one a while back as well... And after i got done tweaking the system to where I wanted it the total price was just over 6 platinum..

So i took it upon my self to print out the system configuration and price check the parts on the web. After I got done price checking everything I had the same system that I could build for around 2200... Don't waste your money...

I don't know how they stay in business

I detest Alienware, nothing but overpriced, poorly built crap!

However, that said $800 for two X1950XTX cards is not a bad price. Newegg has them down at a tad under $500 each. Then throw in the $200 for a decent 850W PSU and it sounds fine. I still wouldn't buy one though! Homebuilt FTW!

I don't see anyone getting "owned" besides the misinformed OP.

I believe people told you that Alienware was overpriced in that other thread. Why so surprised?

Indeed. People that don't know about computers should jut not post.


Sure does.

As much as I hate Alienware I have to agree with them on this point. I don't think the OP realised that the quoted $800 for the cards was for two! The X1950XTX and the 'master' X1950XTX 'Crossfire Edition'. Considering they're both around $500 each, $800 for the pair is a pretty good price.

Like I said above though, I still wouldn't buy a POS Alienware!

Some of you are missing the "price bump".

The extra price for the second video card and increase in power supply is $1,200. And that is above the price for the system with a single ATI card, and a lower wattage power supply. And if I am looking at the right system on their site, it is a single Radeon X1950.

So the price is $1,200, to add in the second video card, and for a higher wattage power supply. $1,200 for what is no more then $700 worth of parts. Can you say "Arm & leg"? Of course, they are willing to finance it, so only $36 a month does not sound that bad. You are better off if you get this to get the standard unit, and install the Crossfire and higher power supply yourself.

And I agree with what so many in here (including myself). Find either a local computer store that is experienced with higher ended systems, or find a good quality consultant to help you design and build one yourself. If you can't do either, find a company that is experienced with building systems like you want.

AW is a rip-off company. They were not always this bad, but when Dell bought them, they got much much worse. Now they are little better then car salesmen (used car salesmen at that).

The straight off the shelf version of this computer only has a 256M X1600XT. You can upgrade to a single 512M X1950 for $400 or the Dual 512M X1950 and upgrade the 700W PSU to the 850W for $1200. They really aren't giving you any allowance for the original card, but it's not a total rip off for $1200. All in all, I will never buy an off the shelf computer, I prefer to research and build my own and save a few bucks (to buy all the GW expansion...LOL).

to begin with if your goin to buy a overpriced computer get a voodoo they are better but if your american it works out alot cheaper to buy ur products from the likes of newegg and if your british you could still build it cheaper just not as chaep as what americans could

anything not built by yourself = rip off

Why do laptops exist I wonder :0

Thats what happens these days, a company is pretty good to/for customers, gets bought by larger company, then goes to hell. (See DICE buyout by EA)

Thie price of those items alone does not even come to $1,200. When you add into that the price of an X1600XT ($110-125), you are really paying over $1,310 for this upgrade.

Myself, I would rather save the money and get the standard version. That way I get the parts for a lot less, and still have an X1600XT I can use in something else (or sell on EBay, they are going for around $75 there).

Of course, I would never buy from AW in the first place. The best computers I have ever seen were all built by me.

That's a coincidence! The best computers that I've ever seen were also built by me! This me guy must be good!

I have to disagree with the price thing a bit. The X1950XTX w/crossfire has an avg price of $480 (2 would $960) and the avg cost of a decent 850W PSU is $300. That takes you over the $1200 that AW is charging. Are they giving a refund on the X1600 that is being replaced? Maybe, maybe not. If they do give an avg $125 refund on it, it still isn't unreasonable to charge that price for that setup. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to sell AW...I would never buy from them myself. But the OP was raging on some tech support person about a price that is actually some what reasonable. Can you find the X1950 for less than $480 a piece? Probably...but they (AW) are in the market to make money...they buy parts, mark them up some and resell them to the consumer.

WTF are you guys smoking?? :O $200/$300 for a PSU?? :O Are you CRAZY!!????

Either way, AlienWare are overpriced, ripoff merchants, who charge for the name, Such as many many other, over priced companies..

Thier systems arent even that good,

I have a friend who bought an AlienWare computer, I told him he was silly and I could build the same system, (that would benchmark better) for much less, he diddnt believe me.

2 weeks later, i came to him with a system I had built, even the case was close to the AlienWare ones (I hate the look of them cases tbh!)

any ways, needless to say, it cost me Just over £1200 LESS, and the performance in benchmarks (3D Mark, Fear, Prey benchmarks etc) was the same or BETTER than the Alienware one.. probably the only difference in the machines was the cabling inside, the AlienWare one was SLIGHTLY tidier, but then they have people who do this day-in day-out all year so :P

I am not arguing about that. I am in the computer business myself, so I understand profit and markup.

But if you think Alienware pays anywhere near $480 for those cards, you are on crack. That is for the full retail box from a retailer. Companies like AW buy them in lots by the hundred, at a large reduction. They also buy OEM cards, which knocks off a bit more per unit.

To give an idea how much the "big names" save, look at the price of Windows. I notice that they are charging an extra $100 to go from Media Center to XP Professional. Even though the actual markup of this item is only around $25. So there is another $75 above that.

Now here is the real secret: The "Big 25" computer manufacturers only pay around $30-50 per license. And they do not even get the license from Microsoft. When a big company like Dell licenses an OS for sale with computers, MS gives them the right to make their own stickers. So they pay MS around $40 on average per license, and have their own printing company (MS authorizes dozens of companies to print the licenses) to print it for them. And because it is a license for "Dell" or "HP" or "Toshiba", it can't be used on anything else. So not only are you paying significantly more for the cheaper license, it is not even transferable.

If we could buy our XP for the amount that those companies do, we could easily knock $50 off of the price of systems we build. But the price of XP to small builders is skewed badly compared to the price given to the major manufacturers. This is why Dell can sell $300 boxes, while the cheapest we could build is closer to $450.

About 5 to 7 months ago Dell Bought out Alienware and now owns it. Shortly after the purchase, there was a markup on prices at alienware. Not that their prices where already high, they just went higher. I know about this because I worked at Dell tech support when they purchased it. There was a memo about the purchase and that we would now support those systems